Randy Weiner

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Randy Weiner is an American playwright, producer and theater/nightclub owner. Weiner co-wrote the Off-Broadway musical The Donkey Show and, as one-third of EMURSIVE, produced the Drama Desk Award winning New York premiere of Punchdrunk's Sleep No More. He is co-owner of NYC "theater of varieties" The Box and The Box Soho.

Personal life

Weiner was born Edward Randall Weiner, the son of a New York banker and lawyer. He graduated cum laude from Harvard University. On October 1, 1995, he married fellow theater arts graduate Diane Paulus.[1]

Career

Weiner and Paulus along with a few other theater school graduates established a small theater troupe in New York City called Project 400 Theatre Group.[2][3] With Project 400, Weiner and Paulus specialized in creating avant-garde musical productions which married classic theater and modern music.[4] These included a rock version of The Tempest, an R&B Phaedra and a hip-hop Lohengrin.[4]

In collaboration with Paulus, Weiner co-created The Donkey Show, a disco adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream which ran off-Broadway from 1999 to 2005 and was revived in 2009 for Paulus' first production as director of the American Repertory Theater.[5] Critics cited the production as an exemplary of a trend in which edgy avant-garde theater had become fashionably mainstream.[6]

In February 2007, Weiner cofounded (with partners Richard Kimmel and Simon Hammerstein) the Box theater on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.[7] The cabaret theater has drawn attention for its risque burlesque acts.[8] In September 2009, Weiner and Hammerstein announced the opening of Purgatorio, a temporary Halloween-season nightclub with a macabre sex-based theme.[9]

Weiner has served on the Advisory Committee on the Arts at Harvard University.[10] He has guest lectured on theater arts at Columbia University, Barnard College, New York University, and Yale.[citation needed]

References

  1. ↑ "WEDDINGS; Diane M. Paulus, Randy Weiner", New York Times, October 1, 1995
  2. ↑ Colleen Walsh, "Paulus reaches beyond boards", Harvard Gazette, 23 April 2009
  3. ↑ Ricky Spears, "Quick Wit: Anna Wilson ", TheaterMania, 7 July 2000
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Eric V. Copage, "Not Your Mother's Musical, and That's the Point", The New York Times, 6 September 1999
  5. ↑ Megan Tench, "Disco inferno", The Boston Globe, August 23, 2009
  6. ↑ Arnold Aronson, American Avant-garde Theatre: a History, Routledge; 1 ed. (2000), p.207
  7. ↑ Spencer Morgan, "The Box Feeling a Little Boxed In", New York Observer, September 16, 2008
  8. ↑ Allen Salkin, "Imperiled, the Box Defends Itself ", New York Times, September 26, 2008
  9. ↑ "Club Wide Shut", New York Post, September 15, 2009
  10. ↑ Practice & Performance: The Guide to the Arts at Harvard, Harvard University, 20th Edition, 2003/4
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